what is happening on this bag.

http://failblog.org/2009/03/15/doritos-bag-fail/

This is a very funny blog. Make sure you have time to spend because the images and videos are hilarious.

Thinking out loud

UPDATE: I got an A for this class and an A for my paper. Pretty decent, me thinks.

I’ve been taking a Christian Spirituality and Prayer course for my BA in Technology. It was the only class offered and the last class of this type (humanities) I needed before I could focus on the core classes in my field.

Many of you know, or may have guessed, I’m not a big fan of religion (of any stripe). During the class I was able to keep a balance between questioning and not being antagonistic. Eventually the instructor subtly sped up the lectures so that practically no one could ask questions. But that didn’t matter since I was one of three people raising their hands requesting clarity.

As a side note, on the first day of class I almost dropped it. The instructor is a preacher and several students in the class were already rocking their heads back and forth and I could hear quiet Amens whispered now and again.

But … I decided to approach it from a different perspective… research for my book on Father Joseph. I needed the phraseology, the history of church doctrine, and quotable highlights from what preachers say and have said throughout history. In that context I stayed in the class and got a lot out of it.

My position didn’t change and to be honest was only validated as the history of Christianity unfolded before us. There were many “dark times” as explained by the preacher professor. And from what I heard, know from the past, and have seen there aren’t very many light times.

Anywho…. it was a good class and I learned much. Last Thursday 12Feb09 I gave the following presentation to my class and instructor. It was well received by some and crimestop took over for others. It was very interesting to watch many nod in approval as I read scripture and toed the party line, then immediately physically roll back in their chair and shake their head as I offered a different perspective on what was really happening. (Or what possibly may have been happening if you take the religiosity out of the equation, also known as what was really happening. What can I say, I’m biased. 8^)

After I gave the presentation the instructor had us take a break. When we came back, one more person gave their presentation were unexpectedly (and what didn’t happen before my presentation) people started asking questions and clarifications about the person and events in the paper and the instructor had to break in and give the answers because the student only had pat answers. When that was over he suddenly let us go 50 minutes early with more than half the class still left to give presentations. 8^)

Enjoy if you want. http://www.steagus.net/moses/

Comments as always are welcome.
Sterling

Thinking out loud

Satan. - Nope.
Religion. - Close but still nope.
Greed. - That’s even closer but it’s a sympton not the cause.
Money. - Well not entirely.
Profit. - Ding! Ding! Ding!

I have ranted before on this blog about corporations and social ills caused by the intentional divisions of people through wealth, status, race, religion and the like. They are all tools for social manipulation.

Never have I seen this laid out so clearly than in the movie I just watched:

Zeitgeist: Addendum.
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/dloads.htm

UPDATE: (If you don’t have a bittorrent client*, here is the google video version of the film in its entirety.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912
But make sure you have juice on your notebook and time as it’s 2 hours long but worth every minute.)

Yes, it is from the same people who created the first Zeitgeist movie that was broken into three parts: Religion, 911 stuff, and Money System. All good stuff if perhaps a little reaching on the 911 events, but still worth watching for the content of the Religion and Money parts.

But Addendum is trained like a razor light - a laser if you will - on the root causes of the world we live in today. And better yet it proposes a solution. A solution already seen by Gene Roddenberry and so many other writers and creative thinkers in the world who have millions upon millons of fans who thirst for a better world but are stuck.

I encourage everyone to go to the above link and download this movie. It’s free. Or if you have some coin it’s $5 dollars. Yeah, $5 bucks for a two hour movie. A one hour movie from the history channel is $30 dollars and doesn’t contain half the revelations as laid out in the above.

The main thrust of this movie is that all these social problems we have: crime, energy, medicine, education, the list goes on, can be solved today, with current technology.

The road block is “What’s the profit in it?” Unless there is profit there is no progress. What a sad and disturbing way to live.

We need a global sense of altruism. We need a radical change in our group think. One that embraces the potential enhancements of our lives and our species rather than our bank accounts. One that replaces superstitions and dogma with reason and education.

Not everything in this movie is straight forward and getting through the first half may be hard for some, since it’s about the financial system and how our governments create money out of nothing, but once you understand that and see the rest you may never be the same.

Crazy talk, I know. But sometimes the crazy people are the only sane ones left in a society. (Ask Galileo, Ghandi, Socrates, Martin Luther King, and countless others who dared to question the established status quo.)
Steagus

*(utorrent (http://www.utorrent.com/) is a small bittorrent client that does not have spyware or malware or viruses. It’s also FREE. I was able to download the torrent version of the above movie in just over an hour and watched it later.)

The Credit Trap, Thinking out loud

Last night I woke up yelling and throwing punches in bed. It was the most startling awakening I’ve had in a very long time. Looking around in the glow of nightlights I had this overwhelming sense of anxiety, anger, frustration, and a deep sense of self preservation but the kicker is I had no idea what I was dreaming.

None. I was asleep. Then I was awake adrenaline coursing through my body.

Then I laid back down and almost immediately went back to sleep. I didn’t even have time to contemplate what it might have been about before I went unconscious again. All I know is this morning I remember that I woke up that way at least once in the night.

I awoke at other times in the night - around 3 and 4am - but never like before.

Weird. I wonder. I just got back to class and am going to bed early.

Curiosity has gotten the better of me. That and I’m really tired. 8^)

UPDATE: I meant to ask this but forgot because of the tired. Has anyone else had an experience like this? Do you remember what the dream was about? Has it happened often?

I use to be really into studying dream stuff and the “night terror” experience was a fasinating subject. I think that’s what this was.

Thinking out loud

http://www.wimp.com/truefear/

Vote Yes!

I particularly like the exclamation as the Rep. turns the page to continue reading the bill. Clearly he wasn’t thoroughly briefed. 8^)

Thinking out loud

One of my classes this semester is Organizational Behavior. Our final (and only) report is a five page essay on our core competencies as known by ourselves and the people around us.

So I’m throwing a call out for insights into my flaws and strengths as seen by the people I know. Please note that if you don’t know me your comment will hold less weight than people who do but won’t be completely worthless. Random guessing is a legit human process and I embrace the concept - mostly.  But it does have its drawbacks - especially in the area of universal origins and meaning of life stuff.

I’d like to get feedback on flaws mostly. They stand out more brightly as being completely wrong and my big brain can skip over them more easily. But if you have any strengths you’d like to share I’d welcome those as well. Oh and if you have any witty quotes I can use as coming from my friends/family it would go a long way toward filling out the five pages.

Not that I’ll need it, the source material is very rich and robust. Unfotunately he won’t allow photos. (I gained fifteen pounds since I started my new job! Eeek!)

But seriously I’m very interesting and feel I can easily write this paper and get an A with or without any so called insights by the people around me - otherwise known as the lower ones. But if they feel the need to better themselves and talk to me about me I will not discourage them in any way.

I await no one but will check back in a couple days for what might have been left. (It’s an eight week class so it goes rather quickly. Can’t delay too long you know. Of course you don’t. That’s ok.)

 Let’s get this started. 8^)

Communication Competency
Diversity Competency
Ethics Competency
Across Cultures Competency
Team Competency
Change Competency

Thinking out loud

…

Discover Card

Thinking out loud

Everyone knows China has a huge industry surrounding pirated movies. It’s a fact and really something to be concerned with. We all know Hollywood is freaking out about it. 

But truth be told I think they are so concerned because then the Chinese people will finally realize that Hollywood has been stealing all their movie ideas and rise up as an angry mob and crush them under a sea of Kung Fu fists and feet. 

Take the amazing movie The Departed. 
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407887/

Great movie and powerful performances but it’s a complete and utter rip off of a movie that came out four years earlier called: Internal Affairs (USA Title. Mou gaan dou Hong Kong title.*)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338564/

They ripped this movie off so badly it’s really difficult to see how they got away with it and how they weren’t sued into non-existence for plagiarism and theft of intellectual property.

Here’s how bad it was: (spoiler alert)

Remember the scene with the stand off at the end where they were coming down the elevator in The Departed and the undercover cop was going to take the mole into custody and when the doors open up the undercover cop gets shot in the head by another mole cop sent to protect the original mole and the elevator doors continually close and open on his legs? And then the mole in the police force (who’s really bad) shoots the other mole cop in the head and makes it look like they shot each other? Well that scene is played out exactly expect for one part - they aren’t in the elevator. They are outside an elevator and when the doors open the undercover cop gets shot and the doors continually close on his legs.

That’s the difference.  The blocking was the same except the director said, 

“I know this translated Chinese script says inside the elevator but just to switch it up a little, we’ll do everything the same only we’ll do it” …wait for it…. “outside the elevator.” 

Then the director is praised as a genius of creative cinema as some lowly director wanna-be intern gives him a massage with a happy ending while they move the camera to the opposite side of the room. 

There are so many other parts that steal directly from this movie I just don’t have the time or energy to rant on them all. 

Just know that as much as I enjoyed The Departed after seeing Internal Affairs it is now a cheap imitation of a fantastic and gripping foreign film. I highly recommend renting it. It was better acted and directed then The Departed and I was reading the subtitles while watching it and it still was more enjoyable.

*(Ok. So I know Hong Kong isn’t exactly China but since the British left and the entire island is filled with Chinese descendants, and it’s now under Chinese rule again, and because I needed a country with enough people to rise up in angry mob fashion that would elicit the appropriate imagery - they are China. Done.)

Thinking out loud

I saw this video and had to share it. 

Watch it, now!,  then pass along to everyone you know. 

http://www.wimp.com/thegovernment/

Yes, start a chain email on this video. 

My only solice is that we have appoximately 600 more years to go before we (America) goes the way of the Roman Empire. Of course with accelerated technology comes accelerated societies so perhaps I’ll live to see the fall of the US. But at least not until national and local elections turn into propoganda machines for special interest groups pitting one section of society against the other utilizing moral platforms of hate and prejudice under a guise of choice between two parts of the same cloth and the rule of law is usurped and restricted by those Inside to defend “us” against those outside. 

Wait… oh crap.

……

And now for the saddest commercial I have ever seen. 
http://www.wimp.com/inspirationallife/
And one final video for the rational thinkers in the group, just to tie in with the history theme of this post:
http://www.wimp.com/nicetalk/

Thinking out loud

I saw this video and was thoroughly impressed. 

http://www.wimp.com/wildants/

But as I watched the scientists unearth the ant colony I started to feel kinda sad for the ants. Should anything that could create such an amazing structure be buried alive in cement? 

Yeah, yeah, nine year old girl, “Go to hell kid.”, ant colony, “poor ants”. 

But seriously isn’t this an amazing achievement for insects that basically have only one individual function and simply work in a collective hive? 

Now I’m no lover of ants and I drop kick them in the face every chance I get but still … 

I’m confused. Perhaps it’s because I woke up this Saturday morning at 7:08 am to the sound of a cat (Allegra) throwing up in the living room and when I went to stop her she did what she always does - RUNS! 

If I can catch her before she starts that’s fine, I can usually herd her into a tiled area, but if not then I have cat puke strewn across the house. Not cool and tends to get the heart racing somewhat. This morning she had mostly finished and I was able to clean it up rather quickly. But still the damage was done - I’m up. (just an aside - having the sound of a cat puking in the house while asleep really messes with your dreams. I vaguely recall dreaming about Hilter throwing up on Tom Cruise and then it turned into a toaster puking on June Cleaver.  Then I realized what it was and bolted out of bed. Odd stuff.) 

Who’da thought she could be so pukey? 

What? Why aren't you petting me?

Ok. Back to the colony. I’m curious how that cement doesn’t get stuck half way through and then block the other liquid from getting to the bottom? And why doesn’t it erode the sides of the tunnels? 

Here’s a really interesting Fun Fact site about ants: 

http://www.lingolex.com/ants.htm

Here’s wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant

 Oh well. Since I’m up I might as well get some laundry done and prepare for the day.

Thinking out loud